Scrum Standup & Definition of Done

Framework: Scrum ceremonies — the daily standup and an explicit Definition of Done
Use for: Making the daily standup a coordination tool instead of a status meeting, and ending the "is it done? sort of" ambiguity that wrecks forecasts
Time required: Standup is 15 minutes a day. The Definition of Done is written once and revisited rarely

How to use this template

1. The standup is for the team, not the manager. It is where the team coordinates and surfaces blockers, not where people report status upward. The moment it becomes a status meeting, attendance turns into theater.
2. Timebox it to 15 minutes, standing. If a topic needs more, name it and take it offline with the people involved. Protect the box.
3. Walk the board right to left, not person by person. Focus on moving work to done, starting with what is closest to the finish line. This beats the round-robin "what I did yesterday" recital.
4. Write the Definition of Done once, make it explicit, and enforce it. "Done" left undefined means work counts as complete at the demo and then bounces back from QA. The fix for chronic slippage is usually a real Definition of Done, not more ceremonies.

Daily standup

Format (15 minutes, timeboxed): walk the board from the Done column backward. For each active item, the owner answers:

• What moved this toward done since yesterday?
• What will move it today?
• What is blocking it? (Name it. Assign someone to clear it after standup.)

Parking lot (taken offline after standup): [topics that needed more than a sentence]

Anti-pattern: the standup where everyone reports to the lead and tunes out when it is not their turn. If only the manager is listening, it is a status meeting wearing a standup costume.

Definition of Done

A checklist that must be true before any item counts as complete. Make it concrete. The classic minimum, from the Freightline lesson in the guide:

• Built and meets the acceptance criteria
• Tested (unit plus the relevant integration / manual checks)
• Reviewed by someone other than the author
• Documented (what changed, anything operationally relevant)
• Deployed, or merged and ready to deploy by the agreed path
• [Your team's additions: feature-flagged, monitored, accessibility-checked]

Our Definition of Done: [edit the list above to what your team actually enforces]

Definition of Ready (optional, recommended)

The mirror image: what must be true before an item can enter a sprint or move into In Progress.

• Acceptance criteria written and unambiguous
• Dependencies identified
• Estimated or sized by the team
• Small enough to finish within one cycle

Ceremonies are cheap. The discipline underneath them is the point. A team that runs perfect standups with no Definition of Done is performing Agile, not practicing it. More on Scrum, Agile, and why velocity only becomes a forecast once "done" is defined, in the Frameworks & Mental Models Guide at biztechprimer.com.